The RippleX Fellowship program is dedicated to supporting student founders and aspiring VCs to kickstart their journey in the startup ecosystem with a strong set of knowledge, tools, and network.
Our fellowship program and online course have scaled to help student founders and aspiring VCs across the world get access to knowledge and a unique network. The only thing lacking was financial support to offer in tandem with all of our initiatives.
" As a founder who raised venture capital for the first time, I was able to accelerate my understanding of core concepts without being a VC before. Since being in the program, I was able to go through Y Combinator and raise a seed round in less than 6 weeks. Beyond learning valuable fundraising skills, one of the most difficult experiences as a founder is going on the journey alone. I was fortunate to have met lifelong friends through the program and continue to pay it forward by being an active mentor/friend to fellow founders."
Lyn Chen
COO @ Webapp.io
Hey, I'm Dominic from the Ripple Ventures team! I founded this program in January 2019, after going through the process of learning about the startup and venture capital industry as a student myself.
Anything you can think of, from reaching out to the (limited) alumni base from my school who worked in anything remotely close to VC, to checking out other programs for students, to watching lectures on YouTube on VC, to reading old blog posts online, I've done it all.
The majority of resources out there were dated, it was tough to get people on calls and meetings as a student, and it was so hard to learn about what the "real-life" experiences were like for founders and venture capitalists.
That's why I wanted to start this program. I wanted to change how hard it was for students to learn how to build companies and raise capital. To make it accessible, valuable, and fun to learn about how this opaque world works.
Many don't know this, but we started the program very small, with five students who took a bet on us in our first cohort in January 2019. We had a small set of materials that we coached students through, but it was mostly lecture-style.
We've evolved the program a lot over the past few years, and now have 25 students per cohort. Each group of students has a strong mix of founders and investors from a diverse background and school base.
We go through a very robust content library and run engaging discussions on a bi-weekly cadence. Our team brings in industry experts to run workshops with students, and we've built one of the most tight-knit ecosystems in the startup world.
Our goal with this program is to scale it out into one of the largest communities of highly driven startup leaders in the world.
We want to democratize and add transparency to the intricacies of venture capital and startup building to the masses. Whether you are in this program or not, we want to be able to help you with our resources and network.
We've already proven that great founders and investors can come from any school, background, and experience. Some of our alumni have gone on to some of the most prestigious accelerator programs like Y Combinator, raise venture capital rounds with top tier firms, and even go on to work at funds like General Catalyst and ICONIQ.
We've taken students from 50+ schools, and many have gone on to have successful careers as founders, venture capitalists, and tech employees.
Supporting a diverse (and just simply amazing) student group across North America, ensuring a minimum of 50% diversity (gender and BIPOC).
All of our program materials are open-sourced, and any student can access our knowledge and experiences. Even if you're not a part of the program, we hope to be able to help you scale.
Helping others in the community without expectations of any reward, building the ripple effect in the RippleX Fellowship ecosystem.
